Musings, dreams, thoughtcrimes.

Canada and assumptions of criminality

I have criticized the Canadian government on free speech issues in the past — especially with regard to their disgraceful “Human Rights” tribunals. However, this post by Jennifer Abel deserves mention.

This is my third or fourth trip to our northern neighbor, where I like to play amateur sociologist between tourist-trap visits, and I’ve reached the following conclusion: the Canadian government trusts its people far more than the American government trusts theirs.

I’m not arguing that Canada’s some libertarian paradise. Far from it: even ignoring their high taxes and socialized medicine, there’s the fact that Canada, in lieu of a right to free speech, has an apparent “right to never have your feelings hurt” upheld by the kangaroo courts of its notorious Human Rights Commissions. (Are you a newspaper publisher who wants to reprint the notorious Danish Mohammed cartoons? Don’t do it if you’re Canadian.)

And yet, in day-to-day matters there seems far less assumption of criminal intent.

@Quirky Indian
The case against Ezra Levant was ultimately dismissed by the tribunal. It was probably the result of the huge publicity the case got, fuelled by impassioned blogs ;-) and a surprisingly vocal free-speech coalition. Ezra own website also helped, as did his eloquent defence of free speech in this video, which became an youtube legend.

It his worth noting that in the three decades of the existence of Cnada’s human rights tribunals, this was the first case in which the accused was acquited.

However Levant’s legal troubles are not over. He is now being sued in a defamation claim over the same case due to comments he made about it. In fact this new suit is astonishing in its scope and perhaps as offensive to defenders of free speech as the original complaint. Check out Levant’s post on the matter.